HBO confirm Game of Thrones season 8 will air in 2019

It’s probably the world’s worst kept secret but fans now officially know they’ll be waiting a year for the final season.

HBO released a short statement on Thursday, confirming the final six episodes of its biggest ever smash hit will air in 2019.

They declined to provide any additional information except for the directors, producers and writers that will be associated with season eight (this information had already been released).

Many of the episodes in the final season will be as long as feature films, part of the reason that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss insisted it would take a year to make.

Production on season eight started in October and it’ll reportedly finish in August 2018, surpassing the time spent filming on any of the first seven seasons.

During the summer, HBO programming president Casey Bloys told The Hollywood Reporter: “Our production people are trying to figure out a timeline for the shoot and how much time the special effects take.

“The shooting is complicated enough — on different continents, with all the technical aspects — and the special effects are a whole other production period that we’re trying to figure out. That is a big factor in all of this.”